It’s November Writing Month


Recently my friend, Rene, challenged a few of us to do a daily write, based on a list of prompts she found somewhere. Probably on Facebook, because where else? It’s already November 5th, and we’ve forgotten to start, so I decided that today is a good day for a LIST! (Cause you know how I love lists!) (Iknow, it’s also NaNoWriMo, butI’m just not up for that this year.) So, here we go. Yikes! Some of these are kind of long, or could be…

November 1: Five problems with social media:

  1. Most people’s bad food photography. It’s nauseating sometimes. How do you get a good picture of mushroom gravy on pork chops? Really. And if you feel like you have to say the picture doesn’t look that great, but it tasted good, just leave out the picture and tell us about it. Share the recipe, but keep the picture to yourself. Thanks.
  2. Having to look at people’s before and after weight loss selfies taken in your underwear. Too much information, really. I could get the idea if you were wearing a tank and gym pants.
  3. Seeing the exact same pictures on Facebook and Instagram. They are self cancelling. They might take my breath away the first time I see them, but probalby not the second. Or am I the only one that has the same friends in both places? Wait, do I do that? Post the same photo in both places? I have to check. I’m quitting it if I do.
  4. All those videos that suck you in with “She thought it was just going to be a dinner out but then THIS happened!” Something like that. I’m such a sucker for those things. They always turn out to be nothing interesting. Unless it’s a vet coming home and seeing his or her child or dog for the first time. Those make me tear up every single time.
  5. Those games where someone says something outrageous like “I like to wear dirty underwear” and you comment on it and find that you’ve been drawn into a game for breast cancer awareness that you feel obligated to participate in because you don’t want to be a complete Scrooge. Then you get a list of things to choose from that you’re supposed to post, none of which you would ever really post except maybe you do because of the Scrooge thing. The last time one of those came around I was bold enough to not participate because I just could not bring myself to post one of those icky things. It’s not like it adds money to research or anything. The breast cancer part is just a guilt trip.

November 2: My Earliest Memory

Oh Lord. I don’t know what my earliest memory is. That was a long time ago! But the thing that popped into my head when I saw this prompt was the time when I was in Kindergarten and the babysitter watched me coming home from school. She noticed that I crossed the street without looking and she told my dad about it. (Why was a five year old walking home from school alone? I had to cross at least one busy street to get there, and then our quieter street. Shouldn’t the babysitter have come to walk with me? Or my parents?) Anyway, Cora, the babysitter, told my dad and he was incensed that I hadn’t looked both ways before crossing. That is not an unreasonable response I suppose, but the action he took was  just weird. He made a “sandwich board” sign that said “Please help me cross the street because I don’t look both ways before I cross.” The message was written on two pieces of cardboard, one in front and one in the back and it hung over my little shoulders on ribbons taped to the inside of the boards. He made me wear it to school. I still had to walk there by myself, but I couldn’t leave the house without my sandwich board. I don’t remember if I actually wore it all the way there, but I was terrified of him, so I probably did. Or I wore it at least until he couldn’t see me anymore.  Who makes choices like that? He needed parenting classes.

Okay, that’s it for day one. I will do two a day until I’m caught up because they are longer than I thought. Except the tattoo one will probably be really short because I don’t have any, but I don’t want to give it away so I won’t say anything else about that right now.

Oh! Here’s the list in case you’d like to jump aboard! I’d love to see how others take on these prompts, so let me know where you share them if you do. Sharing is not required, though.  See you tomorrow!

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